In Italy we count many small Great War
museums. To the tourist's eyes this fact looks like picturesque, probably typically Italian and all in all reassuring. But in the global scenario dimensions matter and this dimension issue might become a crucial problem in terms of coordination and
promotion during the Centenary period. This configuration is obviously a huge limit for Italy. What Italy misses and consequently what the rest of the World War One nations are missing is probably a hub-museum or institution able to take advantage of
many feeder-museums, players or stakeholders located for example along the Piave meandering line. Italy cannot count on something similar to British Imperial War Museum, Canadian War Museum or US World War One museum, even if the history of Italy in First World War is much longer compared to the one of the United States. Nevertheless we believe that we cannot avoid to mention the Italian Great War museums as future protagonists of the Centenary celebrations, even if their contribution is still to imagine and to evaluate on a national basis. It might be too blunt, but we should conclude that no one in Italy was able to make business out of the Great War. We mean a serious and scientifically reliable business, because on the other hand we attend every month to many small local businesses of collectors, bazaars and similar things. What a pity!

Beside of that, we should consider that
probably the idea of historical museum itself is now facing one of the biggest
crises ever: historical museums should rethink their guidelines and their
strategies in order to be attractive without compromising the
quality of the offer. Everybody knows that historical museums should go beyond their dusty tapestry and that their precious weapon collections can turn one day into knick-knack. Alas... what a big challenge! Perhaps too big for us. That’s why we need to go grassroots and prefer to tell some stories of Great War Museums in Italy, just to recap and map the
hundreds of dots that hopefully will turn tomorrow into a special and magnificent blueprint.
And we cannot but start from the principal First World War museum one can find in
Italy, called "Museo Storico della Grande Guerra" in the city of Rovereto. It’s for sure the
most prominent and complete museum dedicated to the war years in the eastern
front between Italy and Central Empires.

In this case we don’t need to spend too many words
about its collections (the website is also in English). We just would like to
remind that in spring the museum is fully open (including the southern
wing). This museum hosts the most complete collections of WWI weapons, uniforms,
photos, relics, posters, letters and diaries available today in Italy. The focus
on World War I shouldn’t lead us to forget the wider time frame that it covers (from
Napoleon to World War II). Only the section dedicated to artillery is still
closed and is going to open again in May. The visitors can drop by the exhibition entitled “Pasubio 1915-1918” (closing next November, see also our itinerary) dedicated to the war on the mountain
boundary between the Trento and Vicenza provinces. In case we were
good enough to arouse your curiosity, a visit to the English website is now highly recommended.

ACROSS THE RIVER

Dear Visitor,

welcome to World War I Bridges, the Italy-based radar of First World War legacy and initiatives in the pipeline for the Centenary. Our interests are in the "units" here below and military equipment is not on the top of our minds. You can surf this site also starting from these "units".

Why Bridges? The armies used to explode the bridges in war operations. We now try to build new bridges during the WWI Centenary from Maserada sul Piave, a small Italian village along the Piave River.

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World War I in Maserada sul Piave

Maserada sul Piave is a small town in the North-East of Italy (Venice area), located in the middle course of the river Piave. After the notorious rout of Caporetto (October 1917), the river Piave became the Italian extreme defensive front. This location and the river Piave are particularly interesting in the scenario of the three main battles of the last year of the Great War: the First Piave Battle (November 1917), the Battle of the Solstice (known as Battle of Middle June 1918) and the final Battle of Vittorio Veneto, that led to the Armistice between Italy and Central Powers. In this locations, the British and the Italian armies faced together the Austro-Hungarians. The British Army was stationed here and that's why our village is an example of a location shared by two national armies cooperating in war operations. The museum located in the village is aiming to become a reference point in Italy for the history of a foreign contingent, namely what we know as the British Campaign in Italy 1917-1918. Since 2008 it has been building local and international partnerships in order also to create events and organize battlefield tours in this area.

Can you build a WWI Bridge with us?

If you're a Great War enthusiast; if you think of having something interesting to point out; if you think that the memory of the Great War should grow around a network of people constantly sharing views on this; if you think that war was not and is not only a matter of weapons; if you stop a second when you read the words "First" and "World"; if you sometimes think that the Great War centenary is getting closer; if you quiver every time you watch Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory; if you strongly believe that the real challange is to find new strategies to tell the story of this war to the digital natives. Briefly, if you discover yourself twanging like a chord every time you get close to this topic and if you wish to throw new bridges around First World War knowledge, we would be more than happy to listen to your suggestions, comments and opinions.

Please take a look also to the web site of the friends of the Maserada World War I Museum and write your emails to this address. You may also follow us on Twitter.Thank you for connecting though WWI Bridges!